Backtrack
by Gagpie
Summary: Inherent power does not come to a person without labor and guidance. As a young boy with psychic powers, Legato Bluesummers requires direction from another source. Uses some explanation of Legato's younger days. (OC, non-romantic)
1. Found

Note: I do not own Trigun. I'm not making money off this. Don't prosecute me please.

Uh... Yeah. So as fair warning, this fic contains non-canon characters. It takes place before the main events of the anime. First Trigun fic also, might be out-of-character points. Reviews and criticism welcome... Try to enjoy it.

----------------------------------------------

Legato Bluesummers was the smallest of boys in the town of Renaud, a shadow of a boy more pariah than human. His home and family had been destroyed only a year before, but already the effects of an outcast's street life were showing. His damp, bloodshot golden eyes bulged from their sockets, trying to regain ground that they had lost when his eyes had sunken into his face with the rest of his skin. He weighed next to nothing, a thin paper bag of bones and blood topped by a matted mess of blue hair. He was the ugly poster child for emaciation, a model of malnutrition. He dug in the trashcans with the dogs for scraps and fought them for space in which to sleep. If no one in the town had known of the way in which his family had met their demise, he may never have faced such a bleak and horrid existence as he experienced right now.

This day, however, was to be the dawning of a new time in the boy's life. Blood red skies blossomed overhead in the early hours, the residents of town sleeping late on a lazy workless morning in their warm beds. The boy lay clothed in rags and uncovered under the red sky, and would have been mistaken for dead by the casual passerby if they had not stopped to watch his fitful breathing as he slept, his sunken chest spasmodically rising and falling from the exertion that his tiny lungs used to rise against the bones, fueled by what little resources his body had ever stored.

_Legato._

The voice awoke him from his shallow sleep. The Bluesummers boy opened his eyes and raised his head to search about, straining himself from the effort that it took him to even move the muscles of his neck. His eyes could find nothing, not human nor dog upon the barren dirt streets. It must have been his own mind calling him to death. It was not be entirely unwelcome.

_I have found you._

But now, a sight came to his weary, watery eyes, a sight of beauty so wonderful that he felt he would be blinded by its brilliance even as he stared upon it.

It was an angel of the morning, a man taller than the sky and more glorious than the noonday sun. His eyes were like ice and His hair as snow, and His eyes now were set only on the small and worthless boy who laid before him, the boy called Legato Bluesummers. A smile that was colder than the night spread across His face as He looked on the boy, and the boy felt his heart leap into his throat, pounding harder than it ever had before or would thereafter. This angel looked upon him and only him, and its eyes told him that his time had come.

"Ta-" Legato croaked, and began to cough as his dry and dusty throat caught up with this attempted plea, but struggled through it in his violent fervor to speak to this angel, "Take me! Take me with you!"

_You want me to take you? To take you where?_

"Take me to heaven." Legato smiled in his most hopeful way, wanting nothing more than to please this angel, and began to cry. "Take me with you to where the angels are."

That frozen smile grew wider, and He came forward to Legato, kneeling down before him and peering into the pathetic and ruined face of the boy.

_Yes. We will go to heaven._


	2. Beginning

Note: I do not own Trigun. I'm not making money off this. Don't prosecute me please.

---------------------------------------------------------------

It was seven months later when Legato Bluesummers had finally recuperated enough under the care of the angel himself that he was able to begin his learning and training. He was to become the newest of the minions to this man, Millions Knives, in the search and seizure of the prized one, Vash the Stampede. Vash had been eluding Knives and leaving him one step behind for who knew how long, dodging and weaving away each time that angel drew close enough to touch him. Legato really had no idea why; he knew Knives only to be the merciful and god-like creature that had rescued him from death that day in Renaud. Why would anyone avoid such a creature?

By this time, Legato was no longer the wretched creature that Knives had found so long ago. His flesh had filled out around the bone, giving him a look of vitality that never quite reached his doubtful eyes. Most of his hair had been too horribly tangled and matted to save, and now his hair grew in short style reminiscent of that of the man who had saved him. He was dressed in clothing that mostly fit, and was much more pleasing to the eye now that the dirt and bone had left him.

That day, seven months after his acquisition into the service of Knives, he had his first meeting with a full-fledged servant of the man he had come to know as Master. This person, while of course a human, was the fifth of the Gung-Ho Guns, a woman known as Nikita, the Eye. She was of short, bloody red hair and masculine figure, and as Legato looked at her for the first time, he had found it hard to tell if she was a man or a woman due not only to the bulky canvas coat that she wore. She came, seemingly without Master Knives even calling her, into the barren but cozy place that was Legato's room, and stood before the Master and his new charge with her hands at her sides like a soldier in the line. Her bland eyes were turned carefully to the wall just to the right of Knives, but no admonishment came to scold her for her lack of attention.

"Legato, you know that you are different from the other humans that inhabit this world of ours." Knives spoke a declaration, but the boy knew that a response was expected of him.

"Yes, Master."

"You were born from human flesh, but you will become much more than you were born to be. You will ascend above the spiders that abandoned you and left you alone and starving on the streets. You will become something better."

There did not seem to be a response for that, and so Legato stayed silent, golden eyes shifting between his master and the woman who stood and watched the wall. He had not been through a test as this one before, in fact this was his first of all tests, and he did not know what to expect. Surely this woman would not put him to harm? No, the angel would never allow that.

Knives spoke again. "Nikita the Eye will be of utmost importance in your now and future training. Look at her and do as she says." And he backed away to stand at the wall, watching the two of them with his eyes like frozen lakes. Legato watched him for a moment, insecure and lost, before he turned back to the woman and looked up into her face.

The moment his eyes met hers, Legato was hurled into a world of pain. Memories dragged from the folds of his brain as if by fishing hooks, streams of long passed conversation and images screaming through his senses too fast to be understood. His mother stood before him and showed him his younger sister for the first time. A second later Father marveled over the broken window. What are you doing boy? Get off the roof you'll get hurt, oh my god the house is burning where is mom where is dad they're all dead dead DEAD. The house burned down around him as he ran for his life and he fought the black dog for the last hunk of bread in the trash can while the kids watched and laughed and laughed Legato the dog here puppy here boy, one boy fell back with a broken ankle and the rest ran off crying for mommy. Hunger tore at his stomach again even though he had just eaten, it was eating him alive and oh my god why did this happen to me why did my family die why god why did I do this to MYSELF-

Those dull gray eyes spun away from his and Nikita, the Eye, took a step backwards as if shoved, brown boots almost tripping over the floorboards as she reeled like a fish caught on a line. Legato fell to his knees and vomited onto the floor, crying hysterically as he did it in rage and shame and pain.

_Good._

The voice rang through Legato's battered brain, almost making him cry out in pain at the added sensation. He looked up with tearful eyes as he heaved dry now, looking at Knives and seeing that same cold smile. Knives had made no move towards either of the two humans.

Legato's eyes then turned to Nikita, who had stood straight again and now looked to Knives with no expression on her face. An immense hatred welled up inside of the young boy, but he felt too weak and powerless inside to do anything about it other than stare at her with fire in his eyes. Who was she to make him go through that again? Who was she to play with his brain in that way? Who was she?

"It will take work, Master." It was that woman that spoke, with her low voice and her eyes set somewhere above Knives. "He has immense potential, but the reins are scattered and out of his control. Before he can begin to travel forward, he must be able to at least gather the reins and know his power."

"You will do it."

"Yes, Master."

"You are dismissed."

Nikita turned her eyes to the left of Legato for a moment, and then spun away to retreat out through the door, heavy boots thumping against the floor as she went. She closed the door behind her, and all trace of her was gone.

Knives came to stand before the small boy as the last of the tears dried on his small and fragile face. Legato didn't dare look at the angel, feeling dirty and ashamed of himself. How could he have failed the Master that way? The first test, the simplest of all tests, and he failed. He puked and mewled like a baby, at the age of nine to be acting as such a girl-child before his savior. What a disgrace.

"Look at me," the Master ordered, and the boy did as he was told. Tears fell from his eyes anew, and he felt a knot grow in the pit of his stomach. Knives wore no emotion upon his face now, and only watched the boy for a moment before he spoke again. "You will be trained by the Eye until I see fit that you are ready to join the ranks of the Gung-Ho Guns. You will obey her every word."

Legato nodded, catching his breath up again and averting his eyes to the floor again. Dirty child. "Yes, Master."

"And why will you do this?"

There was a silence as Legato thought. There hadn't been much depth to his questions before, just a simple Yes, Master or No, Master would be all that was required of him. He ventured a guess anyway. "Because you told me to?"

The large white boot on the man's foot moved forward, stepping ever so carefully onto Legato's left hand. His weight increased, little by little, until Legato cried out from pain as his skin and bone were crushed beneath the sole. When the voice emerged from his throat, the increase stopped, and he heard Knives speak over his pained cries and squeals. "No. You will do it because it will please me. Why do you live, Legato?"

"I live to please you, Master," Legato panted in between a squeal and a hiccup of pain. The pain was excruciating as his bones seemed to break one by one, but somehow it was more bearable when he said those words. It pleased the Master for him to live, for him to follow orders, for him to serve. He was pleasing the Master. That was all he really wanted, all he had wanted since that day so long ago.

"I will ask you again, for all humans make mistakes. Why will you do as I say and follow the orders of the Eye?"

The pain seemed to become more and more tolerable as he spoke each word, his eyes looking up to the angel in pained adoration. "Because it pleases you, Master."

Immediately following his response, the boot lifted from Legato's tiny hand. He sucked in air, it hissing between his teeth as snakes through the grass, and he pulled his hand towards his chest, cradling it there like a wounded bird. Sitting up, he peered up to the face of Knives, his Master, his angel, and said, "I only wish to please you, Master."

"And well you should."

Without another word spoken, Knives left the room, shutting the door behind him and allowing the wounded boy within to clean himself up.


	3. Revolution

Note: I do not own Trigun. I'm not making money off this. Don't prosecute me please.

---------------------------------------------------------------

And so it went that for six years, Legato was subjected to the physical and mental torture of the Eye's powers, not knowing what replaying his memories like an old record player would do for his realization of his "potential", whatever it may be, nor having any idea what he was supposed to do about it to make it stop. The rage he felt towards the red-haired woman grew each time that he was forced through his memories like a dog on a leash. Even as his life had been short so far, it seemed as if each session brought up new and infinitely more terrible things for him to experience over again. Knives did not come to watch every time, in fact he barely watched at all anymore, but the experience was no less degrading for the blue-haired boy who was rapidly becoming a man.

Today was one of those days that Knives came to watch, or as his teacher called it, an "Interim Evaluation". So far as Legato could tell, nothing had changed since that first day except for his body and the level of hatred contained within him. It would not please the Master for him to do anything to the Eye, and so the hate was bottled inside of him like a ripping intestinal parasite.

Perhaps Knives would kill the Eye himself for her apparent worthlessness. That would have been a wonderful thing.

"Legato, look at me." Nikita's face aroused him from his violent fantasies of her gruesome death. He followed the command and looked up into her eyes, face bland with barely contained wrath masquerading as apathy. The rush of pain had become expected now, and one could say it was a kind of masochistic pleasure for him to rebel against this woman in his mind as she injured him again and again, but it never stopped until she wanted it to stop. That lack of control drove Legato against her with all the willpower he had in him.

A boy kicked Legato in the stomach back in those streets at Renaud, and a brown dog bit him on the left arm when he tried to steal the last bit of meat from the trash can, and why was the house on fire again? He could hear his baby sister screaming in the next room and he wanted to save her but oh god it was so hot (no Nikita those gray eyes won't get me this time) and he couldn't see through the smoke and the boys saw him picking through the wreckage Legato burned the house down he did it he did it he killed his family after he had sex with his mom like a dirty (I don't want this again) whore-boy, now the boy with the red shirt coming up was your mom good Legato I heard her screaming you must be a good hard-

_You killed them_. Nikita's voice in his mind as he saw his mother's burnt and mummified skeleton, his baby sister's crib black as death, and he woke up in that fire again and ran from the house with no thought to anything but his own survival while Nikita said again and again in his mind, _You killed them, you killed your family, how could you do that to them, ungrateful human boy failure nothing more than a incest-bred little brat piece of-_

Now a howl of pain forced him from the windstorm of memories, and he realized that the pain had stopped. His eyes blinked once, twice, and then set upon a sight to behold before him.

Nikita, the Eye, the woman who had controlled his life for the last six years of it, was bent backwards at an impossible angle. Her body made contact with the ground only at the top of her skull and the heels of those heavy brown boots, her arms pulled behind her back as if cuffed much too tightly. Her back was a sharp, painful arch, accentuated by the pig-like squealing that emerged from her mouth as she hung in suspended agony, her neck and shoulders straining to keep from crushing her head like a rotten egg. Those dangerous eyes were squeezed shut, her mouth a twisted grimace.

This was what he wanted; this was what he longed for. He felt through his mind for what it was that held this woman in such a painful position, dragging up threads of consciousness that he had never known to exist. A try and a flex, and the arc of her back grew sharper and sharper. A dull crunch reached his ears as her right arm tore from its socket with a bodily yowl from her lungs. Her head almost touched her heels now, just a bit further to go and-

_Stop._

And he did. He paused the torment long enough to look at his Master and angel, and Knives looked back at him. The Master did not need to say a word, and Legato turned his face back to the agonized woman, looking rather disappointed. He raised his left hand slightly and murmured, "I live to please you, Master."

Nikita, the Eye, who knew the past and motivation of every Gung-Ho Gun currently employed and could drop them all as puking babies within a glance, fell to the floor as she was released. She lay there for a moment, breathing heavily, before she rolled herself over and struggled to her feet with great difficulty. It was obvious that it pained her, and she was probably injured in more places than her shoulder, but to show weakness before the Master was a terrible idea.

"What do you say?"

Nikita's head jerked towards the perfect creature that was her Master, and she closed one eye, struggling to speak. Now that she was upright, her nose was beginning to bleed. "He has found himself, Master. He will be invaluable to your efforts."

"I expected nothing less."

Legato heard little of it, watching the blood droplet travel from the nostril of the woman, slowly down over the upper lip and into her mouth. He restrained himself, and felt that need again. He had come so close to killing her. He wanted it. She, this human woman, this insignificant beetle, had been hanging within his hands. He could have killed her. Words could not describe the longing he felt to see her torn and ruined body laying in the dust like a rag doll, all because of him. It would have been sweeter than candy, sweeter than anything that his mind could comprehend to see her blood spill down from her broken flesh. To have that power was intoxicating to him.

"You are dismissed."

Nikita turned, trying her best not to stumble and fall as she left the room and closed the door behind her.

Knives let the silence hang in the air for a moment, letting Legato stand and wonder if he would be punished for his insolent, self-indulgent abuse of his teacher, and also to continue to marvel over his newfound power. A minute passed, then two, and finally the angel spoke. "Legato."

"Yes, Master?" Legato looked at him, as was expected when the angel spoke to him. There was no enraged expression to meet him, but a face as blank as a plaster mask.

"The time will come."

And then the Master left him alone in his room with violent fantasies frolicking through his head. He had thought that something had changed, but it seemed that nothing had since that day so long ago.


	4. Conquer

Note: I do not own Trigun. I'm not making money off this. Don't prosecute me please.

---------------------------------------------------------------

Legato was now a tall and handsome man of twenty-one. His blue hair had grown down to cover his eyes as he never had any care to cut it, and his lanky frame had filled out with a bit of muscle as he grew and worked through the years. He had acquired a white canvas coat that he wore most everywhere, which would come to define him when stories were told of him after his passing. He rarely left the compound of the Gung-Ho Guns and their leader, and so had become a man of fair complexion and few words.

The psychic powers of the blue-haired man had quickly revealed themselves after that day when he had held the life of his teacher in his hands. He continued to work under the eye of Nikita, but now he sometimes was invited to the dark and dome-shaped chambers where his Master met with those who served below him. More often than not, he was summoned there when one of the Gung-Ho Guns would fail in their missions and return, begging for the mercy of the angel on hand and knee. Legato's telltale presence in the chambers always meant doom for whatever flunky happened to show up, bruised and beaten from their endeavors against Vash the Stampede. However, Legato had never been allowed to kill one of these failed men yet. He was only allowed so far as to torture them until they were left as a torn and broken pulp of flesh, and when it was time, his Master would do the final deed to all those who had failed him. It always left Legato wanting and longing for more.

Millions Knives, the angel, the Master, was a sight to be cherished these days. The man in the white coat saw him rarely, only inside of those dark chambers where he did the angel's bidding against his disappointing followers. It was a saddening reality for Legato to find that he was no longer the fortunate son, the favorite sheep under the shepherd's wing. He lived to serve the Master, he had told him so. He had been pure in body and mind, and had never deviated from the Master's orders. His life was devoted to that one purpose, to please and serve this angel of the Lord.

So what had he done wrong?

His frustration was only magnified by the fact that, although he thought that he was improving, he was continually forced to work under that stone-eyed woman. To show his resentment and aggravation would have been to show his weakness, and that was not a thing to do when you lived among the quickest and most ruthless guns on the planet. Emotions were but a trivial nuisance anyway, a thing unnecessary in any kind of useful endeavor that he would ever undertake. And so, in his waking hours, his mind was a blank wall to anyone who might try to peer inside, his face a blank mask of apathy to the outside world, his voice a dull monotone that expertly veiled his emotions.

Fortunately, this month had been a better time for him. Nikita, the Eye, had been sent on her own quest to bring back Vash the Stampede. This month was a hiatus from training for him, but it was in no way a hiatus from the use of his mind to bring harm to others. He continued to torture those who failed Knives, and had taken a newfound liking to playing mind games with the newest Gung-Ho Guns to be enlisted. These included a jazz player short of money called Midvalley the Hornfreak and a masked mute who went as Caine the Long-shot.

Legato sat in his room as he contemplated over these matters, eating a sugar-laden meal as he often did when he thought of the Master. He watched out into the barren desert through the one window of the room, the setting sun turning the sky a burgundy red hue. If only it could have been simply he and the Master on this planet. And, of course, Vash the Stampede. Even the blue-haired minion knew that the absence of the Humanoid Typhoon was what plagued the Master the most.

_Legato._

Golden eyes twitched upwards, and the fork stopped halfway to his mouth. It was the Master.

_It is time._

It was indeed.

He set down his fork and dashed to his feet, coat on and halfway out the door before he stopped himself. Giddy excitement at seeing the Master? Of course he felt it, but to show that would be to lose what respect he had earned for himself. And so he slowed himself, and walked at as quick a pace as possible to that dome-shaped chamber of the man who would be God to him. He passed by the room of Midvalley, though he could only tell by the noise of the saxophone playing inside. Monev the Gale and Leonof the Puppeteer went by him, but he ignored them all in his controlled gait. It took but a few minutes, though in his mind it took an eternity.

Three months since he had last seen the angel. It had been much too long.

Legato passed through the door and knelt down immediately, lowering his head down and speaking in a forcibly controlled voice as he did so. "You called, Master?"

No reply met his ears. He stayed in his position for a moment longer, and then raised his head to look before him. "Master?"

The Master was indeed there, and with a guest this time as well. None other than Nikita, the Eye, knelt on the floor, her back to Legato and her face towards Knives. Her head was lowered, and Legato could see the minute tremors of her body as she tried to stay still. Her coat was torn and bloody, as was the Eye herself. Her student could smell the sharp scent of her blood in the air; it was almost cloying to even be in the room with her. It was on intuition that Legato assumed that she had been beaten by Vash the Stampede.

_It is time._

That voice rang in Legato's head again, and he peered up to the face of the Master. It was those three words that he had been waiting for so long to hear. So long ago was that day when the Master had told him that the time would come. Now the time had arrived, and he could not have been more ready.

Those reins of control that this woman had helped to find were used against her as her body was contorted into a shape more reminiscent of a knot than of a human body. She cried out in pain, her eyes forced to look at her former student as he bent her head back between her shoulder blades and her feet up against the base of her spine. Those dull gray eyes were alive with the rush of doom, and even as Legato could still not look directly into her eyes, he could still see the silent pleas for mercy from her. She continued to squeal like a stuck pig, and as her body folded tighter and tighter against itself, Legato paused, and looked to the Master. It was his turn now.

"You've failed me, Nikita, the Eye," said Knives, not moving from his place as a spectator to this whole event. "One of my most valuable followers, and you could not bring to me a man of little more than flesh and metal. But what more could I expect from a mere spider as yourself. Spiders cannot wish to manipulate the butterfly."

_She is a human, worth nothing._

The gray eyes squeezed shut as blood dripped from the cuts and wounds to the floor. Her mouth moved, and she whined, "Please, have mercy on me."

_Let this first kill bring you to me._

The eyes opened again, and pleaded silently with the student for a release from this agony. "I can explain, I can…"

_Let this first kill bring you to your rightful place beneath your Master and above all others._

The blood began to pool beneath the writhing body, half-suspended not of its own accord. The pain-wracked voice of Nikita shrieked out. "God, mercy, please! I beg of you!"

_Let this first kill be your most glorious._

Legato looked into the gray eyes of Nikita, the Eye, and smiled. He felt the pain and the rush of memories, and swatted both away as nothing more than annoying flies with his own mental capacity. As the shock dawned over and the gray eyes widened, Legato murmured pleasantly, "Good-bye, Nikita."

Her head twisted to the side sharply, and the body fell to the floor without protest. The eyes were as deadened glass marbles in the sockets, and the hands lay splayed like dead spiders on the floor. A mostly bloodless death, the passing caused no drowning pool of sticky human life to ruin the picturesque quality of the moment. The body did not rise again.

Legato was howling his triumph inside of himself, screaming down the corpse and ripping it inside out, but the only show on the outside was that smirk of assured competence. He had won. He had gotten rid of the spider that had threatened his Master with her incompetence. He had destroyed the source of his torment.

It was a week later when he was called back to the Master's chambers and given the stripped and bleached skull of Nikita, the Eye, as a trophy of his first kill. He treated it as the prize that it was, and displayed it on the left shoulder of his coat as if to proudly show that he had mastered his demon, and would do the same to any others what he had done to her.

Following this point, Legato became the greatest of the minions of Millions Knives, ascending to become the right-hand man of his master. He ruled over the Gung-Ho Guns as their leader, and took commands only from the Master himself. He went out from the compound often now, to carry out the orders of havoc that he was sent to fulfill, and never failed in his efforts for years to come. The skull upon his left sleeve remained the first of many murder trophies that he would accumulate throughout his lifetime.


End file.
